Taking On Water

As I've mention on this blog before, despite having nearly a thousand channels at my fingertips I only watch about 11 of them: the big four of ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX plus ESPN, The Golf Channel, USA, Discovery, History, FX and whichever channel is carrying the Celtics game that night. Anyway because I watch a lot of the History Channel, I have seen my fair share of specials on World War II submarines. I vividly remember watching one of them in which a former submariner said that the noise they feared hearing the most wasn't the alarm letting them know a German submarine was near them, but the faint hissing of water escaping through a tiny crack. That meant the pressure of the ocean had cause a leak and they were taking on water. When you're already a hundred feet under the surface, the last thing you want is a leak. He then talked about the way they were always checking for water, because springing even a small leak could be the end of you. You had to be vigilant because the ocean pressure was always testing how well a ship was built, looking for a weak spot. However, the line that really stuck with me was when he looked right into the camera and said, "But, if water wants to come in there is nothing you can do about it - it's coming in. Water will always find a way to go where it wants."

I found myself thinking about that line yesterday when water began leaking from one of the light fixtures in the downstairs hallway. There is a balcony off the master bedroom and when the snow and ice that has built up on that balcony starts to melt that water can get under the siding and into the house. I'm sad to report that this is not the first time this has happened. We slid the fixture out of its place to put a bucket underneath the leak and during the course of the night it stopped. However this morning revealed that while water was no longer coming out of that fixture, it was now leaking from another light fifteen feet away as well as another spot on the wall between the two lights. The issue is that everything outside is still frozen, so we're not really sure where all this water is coming from. The only thing to do was wipe up as much of the water as we could, poke a couple holes in that part of the ceiling to try and guide the water a specific route out so the damage is as localised as possible and then stick a couple buckets under the drips. We figured that all things considered this wasn't too bad, because it was just this one section of the house under the balcony and at least the main roof was still holding up well. (I think you know what's coming...)

An hour or so later I am sitting at my computer upstairs, typing away when I feel something on my arm. A look down reveals it to be water. Assuming the worst, my eyes shoot to the ceiling, but I can't see a drip. However, a second later I can hear one. I pulled up my blinds to discover that water was leaking through a small crack running along the piece of wood at the top of my window. Great. I removed my blinds and jammed a towel in the top of the window, then went around and made sure that this was the only one that had sprung a leak. So far, it is. A look from outside doesn't tell me much, because it looks like the entire gutter is frozen, but my guess is the snow on the roof has begun to thaw and since the water can't get out through the gutters it has begun to back up under the shingles. I tried to check out the situation in the attic, but there are some tight spaces up there and I just can't get close enough to give anything a thorough inspection.

The worst part is that there really isn't much we can do to stop it, short of going up on the roof and shovelling all the snow off and I'm not comfortable with ladders or heights in good weather. We're expecting it be a little warmer the next couple of days, but I'm not sure if melting snow is going to make the leaks better or worse. While the leak by my window appears to have been slowed after spending the afternoon in the sun, the one downstairs dripped constantly all day long and actually got worse late in the afternoon, forcing us to cut a hole into the ceiling to try and figure out a better way to contain the water. I guess the only consolation is that if it continues like this I can start to train my hands for speed, like Jim Caviezel in The Count of Monte Cristo and if it keeps going after that I can use my sword skills to cut neater holes in the ceiling.